JK Tyre National Karting Championship

The JK Tyre National Karting Championship offered a real boost to the efforts the company undertook in taking the sport to the masses. The company introduced the discipline in 1997 and patronized tracks in seven cities across India and thereafter developed a karting series in 2000. The introduction 4-stroke karting in the same year marked a historic moment for motorsport with the explicit objective of infusing young talent into the sport. Starting out with four-stroke karts for beginners, the concept of regional rounds culminating in the National Go Karting Championship was introduced for the first time in the country.

Once karting was established, JK Tyre took another leap forward and in 2005, introduced two-stroke Rotax Kart engines and launched the JK Tyre National Rotax Max Karting Championship. The winners of the JK Tyre Rotax Max National Karting Championship are selected to represent the country at the Rotax Max World Finals held every year. Drivers like Rayomand Banajee, Aditya Patel, Vishnu Prasad, Parth Ghorpade, Raj Bharath, Jehan Daruvala and Arjun Maini have represented the country on the international stage through this route.

Keeping in tune with its philosophy of developing the sport at the grassroots level, the karting series in the country evolved into a competition with a three-tier structure. The series comprising a senior category for the age group of 14 years & above, a junior class for 12-14 year olds in 2-stroke Rotax karts and a micro series for drivers between the ages of 8-12 in four-stroke karts, all sponsored by JK Tyre has become the pipeline for supplying drivers for higher forms of domestic racing.